


Don't Sit on the Shores (don't wait and sigh)

by punk_rock_yuppie



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: DC Trip Fic, Established Relationship, F/M, First Kisses, Fluff, Get together fic, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Requited Love, Scheming, Shenanigans, Text messaging, lots of texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:55:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21540310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punk_rock_yuppie/pseuds/punk_rock_yuppie
Summary: Naked in a hotel bathroom and texting his girlfriend about his coworker-slash-best friend whom he has an embarrassing crush on feels like a very specific crisis to be having. And yet, here Shane is, mired in it. Deeply, deeply mired in it.Shane's feelings for Ryan come to a head during the DC trip, with a little help from Sara.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej, Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej/Sara Rubin, Shane Madej/Sara Rubin
Comments: 34
Kudos: 200





	Don't Sit on the Shores (don't wait and sigh)

**Author's Note:**

> this is written for Bessy, because when I said "just had the thought of Sara’s ‘sit in his lap’ comment abt the big man actually being a ~go bang Ryan in DC~ metaphor or smth and Shane is Suffering™️" her response was "SCREAM" which meant I _had_ to write it. Also, credit to Bessy for pointing out the "2007-era boy band" thing, bc I fully cribbed that from her, haha. 
> 
> big thanks to Mel for beta'ing! this is just some fun poly nonsense. 
> 
> 'Thenjoy!

**[from sara]: ** _is Ryan the big man?_

**[to sara]: ** _Ryan is notoriously short so……no_

**[from sara]: ** _he’s average_

**[to sara]: ** _Are you on his side now?_

**[from sara]: ** _I’m just saying_

**[to sara]: ** _I see Ryan all the time, why would I post about it on twitter. I’m going to have a beautiful reunion w the Lincoln Memorial_

**[from sara]: ** _your history boner is way less exciting than your Ryan boner btw_

**[to sara]: ** _I don’t have a Ryan boner_

—

  
**[to sara]: ** _Why did you comment sit in his lap_

**[from sara]: ** _go sit in the big mans lap!_  
**[from sara]: ** _and by the big man I mean Ryan_

**[to sara]: ** _I got that thanks_  
**[to sara]: ** _In no world is Ryan ‘the big man’_

**[from sara]: ** _could be, Ryan ‘big dick’ Bergara seems plausible_

**[to sara]: ** _Sara please_

**[from sara]: ** _Go! Sit! In! His! Lap!_

**[to sara]: ** _I’m not going to desecrate the Lincoln Memorial_

**[from sara]: ** _go desecrate Ryan then, he’d probably appreciate it_

  
**[from sara]: ** _Shane? Are you desecrating Ryan?_

—

  
**[from sara]: ** _send pics_

—

**[from sara]: ** _okay do you SEE what he’s wearing how can you NOT bang him_

**[to sara]: ** _Yes good morning to you too my lovely girlfriend of many years, I’m great thanks for asking. I miss our orange son terribly _

**[from sara]: ** _he looks GOOD_  
**[from sara]: ** _Ryan I mean  
_ **[from sara]: ** _Obi looks good too, he’s always good_

**[to sara]: ** _Ryan always looks good_

**[from sara]: ** _that’s false_

**[to sara]: ** _Fair_

**[from sara]: ** _tell him I think he looks good_  
**[from sara]: ** _nvm he texted me_

**[to sara]: ** _Why did he text you?_

**[from sara]: ** _to tell me to use my feminine wiles to get you to shave the stache_

**[to sara]: ** _I thought you loved the stache_

**[from sara]: ** _if Ryan wants it gone, I’m willing to say goodbye_

**[to sara]: ** _Ryan is not the one kissing me_

**[from sara]: ** _not YET_

**[to sara]: ** _Sara_

**[from sara]: ** _you guys can give each other beard burn_

**[to sara]: ** _Sara_

**[from sara]: ** _tell him to wear pink more often_

-

**[from sara]: ** _you guys are cuuuuuute_

**[to sara]: ** _I am dying. Deceased. I will never be the same_

**[from sara]: ** _is it bc of Ryan’s thigh gap in your picture w/ freerangegrass? Because same_

**[to sara]: ** _SARA_

**[from sara]: ** _I’m just saying!!! his hips too, damn _

**[to sara]: **_Please stop objectifying my best frien_d

**[from sara]: ** _I’m not objectifying him I am simply pointing out various nice things about him like his hips and that pink hoodie and how he looks like a 2007-era pop punk boy band member_

**[to sara]: ** _Is that what does it for you? I can wear tight pants too you know_

**[from sara]: ** _your hips aren’t built for it. Stick to the naughty Professor vibes_

**[to sara]: ** _Does THAT do it for you?_

**[from sara]: ** _everything abt you does it for me you idiot_  
**[from sara]: ** _just like everything about me does it for you_  
**[from sara]: ** _and everything about Ryan does it for you_

**[to sara]: ** _Not everything about Ryan_

**[from sara]: ** _Yeah, everything_

**[to sara]: ** _I could do without the ghosts thing_

**[from sara]: ** _The very foundation of your beautiful relationship? For shame_  
**[from sara]: ** _Shane just admit it_

—

  
**[from sara]: ** _Shaaaaane_  
**[from sara]: ** _Shane cmon_  
**[from sara]: ** _you know you wanna_

**—**

**[from sara]: ** _I can wait_  
**[from sara]: ** _okay no I can’t please kiss him this weekend or something please I am BEGGING you_

-

**[to sara]: ** _I’m going to see my good friend Lincoln tonight so no kissing or banging for that matter will be happening.  
_ **[to sara]: ** _Not that it would be happening even if I wasn’t seeing Lincoln_

**[from sara]: ** _why tf are you still up you old man go to bed_

**[to sara]: ** _No_

**[from sara]: ** _are you taking Ryan to see your good friend Lincoln?_

**[to sara]: ** _He’s staying at the hotel I think_

**[from sara]: ** _you think?? This is primo romance hour why are you not taking advantage_

**[to sara]: ** _Because I don’t want to screw this up! Whatever it is that makes you think Ryan would be into this is not actually there. I swear to god, I’ve looked and I’ve hoped and it’s not there, sara_

**[from sara]: ** _is this how Ryan feels when he’s trying to convince you smth is an FBA or whatever? You staring at proof right in front of your face and denying it exists ??_

**[to sara]: ** _I can’t do it sara. I’m not gonna jeopardize the show for that. More importantly, I’m not gonna jeopardize my friendship with him for that. _

**[from sara]: ** _you won’t jeopardize anything. Trust me_

**[to sara]: ** _Sorry_

-

Shane shuts the hotel door with probably more force than necessary. On one of the beds, Ryan startles, dropping his phone to the floor with a dull _thud_.

“Jesus man, you scared the shit out of me!” Ryan snaps, less heated and more frazzled. He’s still in the hoodie from earlier, though his jeans have been abandoned at the foot of the bed and replaced with loose-fitting sweats. _He looks cozy_, Shane thinks miserably. 

“Sorry, sorry.” Shane starts to shrug off his jacket. “You’re alright. There were no ghosts at our panel that could’ve followed you here,” he teases. He drops his coat over the back of the chair and sets about unlacing and kicking off his shoes. 

Ryan scowls and Shane’s heart thuds in his chest. “Asshole,” Ryan says, but Shane can hear the undercurrent of affection. Friendly affection, because that’s what they are. Friends. “How was the big man?”

Shane looks up, bewildered. “What?”

“How was the big man? Lincoln?” Ryan furrows his brow. “You okay?”

“Fine! Peachy keen! Lincoln was as handsome as ever. Posted a pic.”

“I saw,” Ryan says. “You really gotta shave that stache, man, it’s even worse up close.”

“Sara likes it.”

“She also told me she could live without it,” Ryan fires back. 

“Stop cavorting behind my back,” Shane says without heat. “I’m gonna shower.” He gathers pajamas from his suitcase and casts one last look at Ryan, cozy and comfortable and unaware in bed, before hurrying to hide in the bathroom.

He checks his phone while he waits for the water to heat up.

**[from sara]: ** _ryan says you’re being weird_  
**[from sara]: ** _stop being weird  
_ **[from sara]: ** _just tell him how you feel _

Naked in a hotel bathroom and texting his girlfriend about his coworker-slash-best friend whom he has an embarrassing crush on feels like a very specific crisis to be having. And yet, here Shane is, mired in it. Deeply, deeply mired in it.

**[to sara]:** _Thanks I’m now naked a room away from Ryan having a crisis_

**[from sara]: ** _wait is Ryan having a crisis and you just left him there??_  
**[from sara]: ** _or you’re having a crisis  
_ **[from sara]: ** _why are you naked_

**[to sara]:** _ This is all your fault yes it’s me having the crisis  
_ **[to sara]:** _ I’m naked because I’m about to shower_

He sets his phone down and finally clambers under the spray. He showers quick but lingers after he’s scrubbed clean. His head is a flurry of thoughts, and his dick is half hard against his thigh, and he really doesn’t want to have to face Ryan yet. He doesn’t want to have to act like he _doesn’t _feel something more than friendship for Ryan. He _wants _to pretend Sara hasn’t spent the better part of two days goading Shane into _doing _something about his feelings.

Shane rests his head against the shower tile and sighs. It’s not like he and Sara had never talked about it before. The second he realized he was catching feelings for Ryan, he came to Sara and laid it out honestly. She’s been understanding and accepting and about six months after that, she suggested they do something about it.

Since then it’s been the same conversation over and over again: Shane won’t do anything for fear of jeopardizing the show and his friendship, and Sara insists he won’t jeopardize anything. 

Shane ducks his head under the spray one last time before turning off the water. He dries off and changes into his pajamas while he’s still damp. Arms full of clothes and his phone in one hand, he finally braves going back into the hotel room.

Nothing has really changed: the television is still on, volume low, Ryan is still in bed and looking comfortable, scrolling through his phone. This time when Shane steps into the room, Ryan doesn’t startle—the lack of a door slamming probably helps—but he does look up.

“Hey, big guy. Was starting to think you drowned in there.”

“Nope, just enjoying that subpar water pressure and middling amounts of hot water.”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “Get over here,” he says as Shane stashes his dirty clothes in his suitcase, “Sara wants a pic.”

“Of us?”

“No, of the hotel room. _Yes_, of us.” Ryan sits up straighter on the bed and swings his leg over the side, patting the space next to him. “C’mon, a quick selfie of the ghoul boys for the ghoul girl.”

Shane’s heart flutters and he wanders over to Ryan’s bed. He sits on the very edge as Ryan pulls up his front-facing camera. There’s a moment’s hesitation, and then Ryan’s sliding an arm across Shane’s shoulders, tugging him closer. Shane shivers despite the warm radiating off Ryan, but looks dutifully into the camera. 

Ryan grins that bright wide smile of his and Shane finds himself smiling too. It’s not exactly hard to do. He leans against Ryan, who snaps one pic, then a second one, and in the third Shane pretends like he’s curling the ends of his mustache and Ryan’s eyes fall shut with laughter. The fourth pic is Ryan’s head turned slightly, forehead against Shane’s cheek as he giggles, and the fifth is Shane with his mouth slightly open, turning his head toward Ryan just enough that they’re nearly breathing the same air, but not quite.

Shane swallows. Ryan’s still laughing. “Ryan,” Shane breathes. 

Ryan leans back, though his arm doesn’t quite slip from Shane’s shoulders yet. Still pressed close, closer than they probably need to be, Shane watches as Ryan sends all five pictures to Sara. Then, as his phone chimes quietly with each one being delivered, he pulls up the pictures one by one. 

Shane inhales sharply and holds his breath. Particularly as the fifth one comes up, and Ryan lingers on it. 

“You’ve seriously gotta shave that stache, man,” Ryan murmurs, shaking his head. “I told Sara to convince you.”

“Sara likes it.”

“Sara _endures _it,” Ryan counters. He flashes a smile at Shane, and it reminds him how close they still are. Close enough that their noses almost brush. 

_Take a picture of this and Sara might actually combust_, Shane thinks. 

“Shane?” Ryan asks, bringing him from his thoughts. “Listen,” he starts.

Suddenly, Shane can’t stand to hear whatever it is Ryan’s about to say. He’s simultaneously so sure it’s rejection and positive that it’s exactly what he’s been wanting for nearly a year now. He can’t stand to know which, so he leans in and kisses Ryan softly. 

There’s the dull _thud_ of Ryan’s phone hitting the floor as his hand finds Shane’s hair instead. Ryan squeaks into the kiss, a soft noise of surprise, before pressing closer. His hand knots in Shane’s hair, tugs gently, before he deepens the kiss. This time it’s Shane who’s surprised, but Ryan swallows his moan before breaking the kiss. 

“Finally,” Ryan gasps. He licks his lips and breaks into a grin. “Fucking _finally_.” 

“What?” Shane blinks. _“What?”_

Ryan’s blush deepens and his grin turns sheepish; he finally draws his arm away from Shane’s shoulders to rub awkwardly at his own neck. “I’ve just...been waiting for that. For a while.” 

“What did Sara tell you?” 

Ryan laughs. They’re still close enough that Shane can feel it against his face. “Nothing, I swear.” There’s a glint in his eyes that makes Shane think Sara told him _something_, but maybe nothing too embarrassing. “You’re not as subtle as you think you are, dude.”

“I’m plenty subtle,” Shane argues before leaning in to kiss Ryan again. This time he curls his hand in the front of Ryan’s sweatshirt and uses the grip to tug him closer. It’s not especially soft but just getting the sweatshirt in his hands, after staring at that tempting blush pink all damn day, is enough. Shane brings his other hand to the hem of the hoodie and slips it under, resting his palm on Ryan’s hip. “Your fucking hips,” Shane growls softly. 

“Yeah?” Ryan says with a laugh. He cups Shane’s face. 

“Yeah,” Shane answers. “Why do you wear such tight pants?”

“Call it a calculated risk.” Ryan nips at Shane’s lower lip. 

“You wore tight pants to _seduce_ me?” Shane leans back to stare incredulously at Ryan. “Are you kidding me?” 

“Sara said—?”

“So you _did_ talk to Sara!”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “Well, you wouldn’t talk to me, so…”

“I, you, she,” Shane sputters, “evil,” he settles on. “I didn’t want to ruin the show, or, or _us_.” 

Ryan’s thumb strokes under Shane’s eye; he’s grinning. “You didn’t.”

Shane wants to argue at first—because that remains to be seen. The show _could_ still be ruined, they could go home after this and have everything fall apart. The stakes are approximately ten times higher with this, not only for the show and their friendship, but for Shane’s relationship with Sara, too. 

“You’re thinking too hard,” Ryan tells him softly. “We got this. We’ll figure this out.” Ryan’s smile is so sure and easy. “I love you, dude. You know I’d never wanna mess up the show either, or us. But I think this is just, like, the next step.”

“The next step in the intersection of my personal and professional career is to enter a polyamorous relationship with my best friend, who up until now has been doing a pretty good job at pretending to be straight?” 

Ryan laughs, loud and bright. He tugs at Shane’s ear playfully. “Yeah, exactly.” 

Shane’s shaking his head fondly when Ryan’s phone starts ringing from the floor. They both freeze, and Shane peers over the edge of the bed first. “It’s Sara.”

“Well answer it!”

Shane leans down and swipes Ryan’s phone off the floor; he answers it and puts it on speaker immediately.

_“Either one of you killed the other or you’ve been making out for twenty minutes.”_

“The latter,” Ryan says cheerily.

Sara’s laugh crackles over the phone. _“I told you!”_

“We are going to have a talk about you two talking about this behind my back,” Shane chimes in. Ryan scoffs at him.

_“Well don’t let me interrupt, I just wanted to make sure nothing went wrong.”_

“Everything’s fine,” Shane says. 

“But we wish you were here,” Ryan adds. 

Shane looks at him but Ryan’s looking at the phone. “Yeah,” Shane says faintly. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, obviously he knew they’d all be in this together. But Ryan’s words really solidify it, bring life to it. Shane clears his throat. “Next time, you’re gonna have to come with.”

_“But then who will take care of poor Obi,” _Sara coos over the phone. Seconds later, the contentedly rumbling of their cat fills the phone and Shane grins. _“Do you miss them, huh, Obi?”_

“We’ll be home soon,” Ryan says. He stops and seems to realize what he said. “Uh, if that’s okay.”

“Of course it’s okay,” Shane says. He tugs Ryan in for another kiss. Ryan grins into it before it turns a little wet, a little sloppy.

_“This is less exciting if I’m not there to see it,”_ Sara teases. _“Of course it’s okay for you to come to our place, Ryan. I’m looking forward to it.”_

Shane shakes his head and Ryan shoots him a funny look. “I just can’t believe this,” he says, “I cannot believe that my girlfriend and my best friend have been scheming. To mutually date me, and each other.”

“Again, you weren’t doing anything,” Ryan says. “It was Sara’s idea!”

_“It _was _my idea.”_ Sara sounds smug. _“And you’re both welcome. I’m patting myself on the back right now.”_

“Of course you are,” Shane says, sharing an affectionate eyeroll with Ryan. 

_“It’s fucking late,”_ Sara says, _“you two should get to bed. _I_ should get to bed.”_ She even yawns. 

“Yes dear,” Shane replies. “Text you in the morning?”

_“Okay. G’night, love you.”_

“Love you,” Ryan and Shane chorus together. Shane tosses Ryan’s phone onto the bedside table before climbing off the bed.

“Where are you going?” Ryan asks. 

“I’m getting up so that I can get _under_ the covers, you dork. Scoot.” Shane prods at Ryan’s side until he shuffles over to give Shane enough room. Once Shane is on the bed again and under the covers, Ryan’s in his personal space immediately. Ryan smiles at him, glasses slipping down his nose. “Still can’t believe this,” Shane says, just for good measure.

“Me neither,” Ryan says. “When Sara told me, or I guess, _hinted_ about how you felt, I really didn’t think…” Ryan lays his head on Shane’s shoulder as he continues talking. “But then I started looking for it.”

“I really did think I was being subtle,” Shane says weakly.

Ryan laughs, rumbling against Shane. “I know you did.” He looks up, and it’s _painfully_ cute, Shane simply can’t handle it. Ryan looking cozy and content, glasses slightly askew, his cheeks still warm and pink. Ryan smiles at him. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“_I’m_ cute? Have you _seen_ yourself?” 

Ryan’s laughter is bright and loud and Shane can’t help but kiss him. 

Later, as they’re dozing off, Shane digs his phone out of his pajama pants and fires off a quick text to Sara.

**[to sara]:** _ I owe you one_

**[from sara]:** _ you think I did this out of the goodness of my own heart?  
_ **[from sara]:** _ I did it to have those biceps all to myself_

**[to sara]:** _ I fucking knew it _

**[from sara]:** _ <3_


End file.
